Old Hats Doesn't Make Clowning New--But Does Make It Excellent.

It can't be a coincidence that “one-upmanship” has that “man” right in the middle of it, can it? Guys' hopeless need to trump each other powers the bravura (bro-vura?) comedy of Bill Irwin and David Shiner's Old Hats, a vaudevillian lark that's all pleasure. The show, written and performed by Irwin and Shiner, pits two of our age's great clowns against each other with predictable results. That's no insult: The sketches are every bit as funny as a charitable theatergoer might hope for, and that includes the bring-up-some-schmoes-from-the-audience stuff--and even the iPad and Viagra jokes. Irwin duets with the former in a marvelous dance pairing tech anxiety with technical dazzle; his teensy doppelganger bounds across the Apple screen, into Irwin's mouth, and, beautifully, onto the great backdrop behind him. The boner-pill bit is the inevitable payoff to the evening's most characteristic routine.

Irwin and Shiner--who battle over the course of the show as political candidates, attention-hog showmen, and the his-and-her halves of a terrible magic act--here play businessmen dressing each other down on a train platform. As the power shifts between them, each man's body swells or shrinks in proportion. Eventually, one swallows the wrong capsule from his days-of-the-week plastic pillbox, and his pants, already Brobdingnagian, tent up like they're holding back Jack's beanstalk. We see the joke coming, but this is post-everything meta-clowning, so that anticipation--stoked by these masters' delicious mugging--is part of the bit. It's like watching a jack-in-the-box, as we do earlier in the show, eager to see the craft of what we think we know will happen.

Joan Marcus

Bill Irwin, David Shiner

Location Info

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Signature Theatre Co

555 W. 42nd St.
New York, NY 10036

Category: Theaters

Region: West 40s

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Details

Old Hats
By Bill Irwin and David Shiner
Signature Theatre--Irene Diamond Stage
480 W 42nd St
(212) 244-7529
www.SignatureTheatre.org

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More About

• Bill Irwin
• David Shiner
• Viagra
• Apple iPad
• Nellie McKay

Not competing with boys, but tying on points, is Nellie McKay, the bandleader, musical guest, and occasional foil. As always, her cabaret-naïf act is superb and surprising, all peaches, cream, and then--just when you're not anticipating it--a shot of something bitingly high-proof.